Search & Rescue Dogs

Due to evolving work committments that might involve 'having' to get through on icey if not not snowy country lanes (tramac) in my own vehicle i have started looking at replacing my current car with a 4x4. Won't do much true off roading aside from reaching SAR training sites and odd trip in france. Looking for that extra grip and controllabilty that i presume (perhaps worngly) that a 4x4 will give me.

The replacement doesn't have to have designer logo ( like say Land Rover ) can be new or pre owned and I don't want to spend more than £20,000 (ideally a lot less). I don't want a huge lump of metal but it does need to carry minimum two people and at least 2 dogs in comfort and safety in all weather (i.e cold and hot). Low Road tax, insurance and diesel mileage of 50 mpg+ essential. Fully removable back seats are desirable to provide a bigger load space occassionally. So far I have looked at Skoda, Suzuki, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Volvo, and Audi. I know there will be lot of people on here with 4x4 experience and advice so i m asking for you to share your thoughts with me. Not owned a 4x4 before so advice welcome.

Equally suggestions of where to shop and/or buy it would be welcome. Current car is a scenic which is very comfortable and roomy but poor on ice and snow.

Thanks.

Andy although I have never personally owned a 4x4 through work and my past farming life, I have had experience of a fair few. I don't think you will find a 4x4 which will achieve 50mpg, because of the additional power required. Land Rover tend to be expensive on parts and service in all variants, a friend has a Nissan Xtrail which averages 35mpg and is expensive on parts and tyres. Subaru are expensive all round!

My Skoda Octavia will go across most surfaces, and averages 50mpg - when I am gritting I have rarely brought a 4 x 4 home in order to get back to our base, unless I am likely to need the ground clearance which the Octavia is very poor on. Whilst I live beside a main road, it is not a gritting priority and being in the middle of the Downs we have steep hills out of the village and the road to our gritting base is 2 miles of unclassified road.

I cannot give you accurate fuel consumption on any of the vehicles we use (Terrano, Patrol, Discovery and Nissan pickup) as they are all used for towing the maximum payload, but in a night covering 200 miles I can use £80 of fuel which is less than 20mpg. The Mitsubish L200 Animal pickup I drive at harvest averages about 25-30mpg - rarely used for towing, but heavily laden or driven slowly when escorting - driven on road at normal speeds and unladen it can achieve 35mpg. I think Roland said elsewhere on the forum his truck achieves 27mpg.

Suggest you google 4 x 4 and have a look at the different types - you can have selectable or permanent 4 wheel drive, differentials, high and low ratios, traction control, etc, the more options, the more £'s!!

If there is black ice on the road 4 wheel drive combined with low ratio and anything else your vehicle might have to offer, won't prevent you from sliding! but it will help you get through snow drifts and muddy surfaces, and back on road if you do skid off! but you will still need to be able to control a skid!

When you make your decision, make sure you either go on a 4 x 4 course or get an experienced person from the supplying garage to explain to you the workings of the high and low ratios and if you have to select 4 wheel drive, make sure you don't have to get out and adjust the hubs to do it!! The country is full of owners of 4 x 4's (mostly used for school runs) who don't have a clue how to drive them in poor road conditions!!

Judy has recently taken delivery of an Octavia Scout, she won't have had a chance to experience winter conditions, but goes on-farm with it and might be able to give you some idea of fuel consumption by now.

Linda

Skoda octavia scout would be my choice

Hich Subarus have you looked at? I've had both a rude boy impreza and a grown up legacy and they have both been excellent. The legacy has a low range box so is reasonably capable in low grip situations. "proper " off raiding is pretty much of the menu down to ground clearance. I am really happy with the reliability and the sales and service departments at the local dealer (Twyford). The only problem is the mpg! My current 2.5 will get a max of 35 but tgat us a petrol. I know they now do the legacy, legacy outback and forester with a boxer diesel tgat dies around 47 mpg combined-I had one as a loan car and deliberately thrashed it (well you have to don't you!) abd got 45mpg. Trouble us because they've only been out a couple if years residuals are stil pretty high.
I have seen a few skoda diesel response cars tgat are 4 wheelers estates, wish I could remember which one. Sorry. I would thoroughly recommend the Subarus though. The space and boot in my legacy are really good and the servicing isn't obscene.
Its probably a bit off the wall but a good friend of mine gas always had land rovers from lightweights to 110 and a series one and he bought a Volvo xc90 when the turbo went on his 110 fir the third time and Ge rates it above the others. He's selling it to pay a rather large tax bill at the moment. 57 plate around 13 grand mpg around 35-40 I think. Anyway good luck!

Thanks guys,

I tried out Subarus last year when I had to replace my last car at short notice. However whilst i agree they are good quality the fuel consumption is as you say p. poor and the road tax and insurance are double or even triple what I am paying at the moment. Also as you say Jon they have only been diesels for a short time.

I haven't had a good look at the Skoda range, there is the yeti that gets rave reviews and the various estate derived 4x4s. I know people who have had Skodas for ages and really rate them. I am tending to look at more compact designs so the big Volvo is not afirst choice at the moment.

I've done a lot of research into this for similar reasons. I've spent a lot of time acquiring specification data for all current vehicles and (unsurprisingly) I made a spreadsheet of it.

I can say, with confidence, that there's very very few 4x4s on the market made before 2010 (when I got all the data) which does 50mpg.

The three cars which suited me best were the Nissan X-Trail DCi, Honda CR-V CTDi and Toyota RAV-4. They all achieve around 40mpg in the 'combined' figure quoted by the manufacturer. I can't speak for the CR-V or RAV-4 but my X-Trail does basically achieve the quoted 39mpg if I drive reasonably.

The reason I bought the X-Trail over the others was because they both demanded much higher used prices at the age of car I was looking at. The X-Trail is also a little more, er, agricultural, which I was looking for. I never drove the RAV-4; while the Honda felt a little more comfortable and refined on a test drive it also felt like throwing dogs, kids, rubbish, garden waste and tools in the back would ruin it in no time. The X-Trail felt like it could take that lot without too much worry.

For the full list of 4x4 cars capable of high fuel economies (>=39mpg), as extracted from my spreadsheet:

Alfa Romeo 159 2.4 JTDM Q4 (June 2007 onwards) - 39mpg

Audi A4 1.9 TDi Quattro 130PS (Feb 2002 to Oct 2004) - 42mpg
Audi A3/A4 2.0 TDi Quattro 170PS (May 2006 to 2007/2008 depending on which model) 42-51mpg, depending on model
Audi A5 Coupe 3.0 TDi Quattro (July 2007 to May 2009) - 42mpg

BMW X3 2.0d - 39-43mpg depending on year

Daihatsu YRV/Sirion - 44mpg

Honda CR-V 2.2 i-CTDI (March 2005 to October 2006) - 42mpg

Hyundai Santa-Fe/Tucson 2.0 CRTD - 39mpg

Nissan X-Trail - 39mpg

Nissan Qashqai 2.0 dCi 4WD (July 2007 onwards) - 40mpg (Note: The 4WD version of the Qashqai is pretty rare)

Skoda Octavia Estate 1.9/2.0 TDi PD 4x4 (May 2005 to June 2009) - 44-47mpg depending on engine/model

Toyota RAV-4 2.0/2.2 D-4D - 39-42mpg depending on age/engine

Volvo S80 saloon 2.4 D5 AWD (June 2007 to October 2007) - 40mpg (rare car)

Volvo V70 D5 AWD (Dec 2007 to May 08) - 39mpg

The best fuel economy car in that list which can still carry a dog is the Audi Avant 2.0 TDi Quattro 170PS made from Sept 2006 to Feb 2008 which claims 51mpg combined. Although I love the Audi Quattros and how they drive I didn't go for this car for two reasons: It was too expensive even as a used purchase and the Quattro drive, while 4x4, doesn't actually give you any improvement in ground clearance. I found in my SAR callouts that ground clearance was WAY more important than 4x4 so I discounted all the car-like 4x4s immediately.

The Skoda Octavia Scout is a pretty good purchase in the list but it's still very new (by my standards) and I wasn't prepared to spend that much. I picked up my 2004 66,000 mile X-Trail DCi a year ago for £5500. In that time I've done 20,000 miles and think it's actually the best all-round vehicle I've ever driven. It's no sports car, it's no serious 4x4, it's not massive, it's not small but it does absolutely everything I've ever thrown at it and it's done it very well indeed. The best comment I've heard about the X-Trail is that it's the first car I've taken all five family members down to the Alps in and the kids didn't complain about discomfort. Apparently it's more comfortable that the Audi A6, which is praise indeed.

At the moment, Scouts are rare as hens teeth new with second-hand models demanding a premium.

Have a look on Briskoda.net and you'll find some people have been waiting up to 9 months for a new one.

Another option to consider is getting a set of steel spared and fitting proper winter tyres to them.

Hi,

Another vote for the x-trail here, I was in a similar position at the beginning of this year. I wanted a road going vehicle which would get me out of the odd muddy field and through a bit of snow but was comfortable, reasonably economic and reliable. To cut a long story short I decided x-trail was the answer, found an old tatty but mechanically sound one in May and fell in love with it !!!!! I get about 40ish to the gallon and love driving it, the dogs are big fans of the space in the boot too

Chris

I'm thinking Skoda Yeti 2 litre diesel 4x4.

Anyone ever bought a car on line? I've found a company called Broadspeed who are qouting about £4,000 off OTR.

Yes I know I'll have to wait about 6 months!!!

I have little to contribute here, only that buying new terrifies me only in the depreciation. Despite being an uber-geek I've never actually bought a car online...